Election 2012: What will it look like?

Palin, Bachmann, Huckabee, Romney - Pawlenty, Barbour, Paul or Trump - who will win Republican minds, radio radicals and tea party butts? OK; sorry for the funky posing of the question, but I feel that it is time for me to make a few predictions before the s--t hits the fan. Noticeably absent from the list of Republican hopefuls is a name we all know; Bush! I do not think that Jeb Bush is stupid enough to enter the fray in 2012, even if they wanted to draft him. Jeb bush is waiting for 2016.

I have made a few predictions in this column and they have been accurate to date. I predicted that Sarah Palin would get a job with Fox news but that would be the extent of her career. Since she quit as Governor of Alaska, I have no reason to back off of that prediction. Even many Republicans hate her - she stands no chance! She did take a job with Fox news: I'm not looking bad at this point. If you study these pages, you saw that I urged people to buy stock in Ford Motors when the price was at approximately $2.00 per share. Check the ticker; you would be rich if you had listened to me.

Now I'm going to put my "Nostradamus" hat on and make a few predictions. Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee. He will have tremendous problems getting the nomination; but look at the field - my God - there is no crystal ball here. The big question is who will be his nominee for Vice-President. This is where things get real complicated, but not for the reasons you might perceive.

In the final analysis, I see the Republican Vice-Presidential choice coming down to a toss-up between Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi and Mike Huckabee, former Governor of Arkansas. My prediction is Haley Barbour because of all of his connections to the oil money. Money always "trumps" ideology. Sorry Donald; you already went bankrupt once and screwed a lot of people in the process.

Why Haley Barbour as Vice-President? Romney lacks no credibility with the evangelical right in this country and his Mormon faith will drag him down. Romney will need to address this problem with his pick. As I see it; he has two choices, Huckabee or Barbour. Neither of these guys can light a fire in the Democratic states. Barbour will be detestable to the Democratic voters but they won't care. Huckabee would have a greater ability to pull in the independent voter and the evangelical right, but only in the states the Republicans are going to lose anyway. This raises Haley Barbour to the surface because Republicans need to win states like North Carolina and Florida. Barbour will be strong with the evangelical voters but more importantly, he will bring in money. Scads and scads of money from the oil companies that will continue to bleed the middle class until we are all walking the streets!

What about the Democrats? Do you really think that the ticket is going to be Obama/Biden. That worked once, but maybe, just maybe, the ticket to success will be changing the ticket. I don't think this is a long shot, but how about an Obama/Clinton ticket? That's Hillary Clinton! Obama is going to need to infuse some excitement after his middle of the road first term.

So here is my early prediction: Obama/Clinton vs Romney/Barbour. I would not throw Joe Biden out the door. Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State are positions that come to mind for Joe Biden that has served his country well.

OK; I've laid it on the line early on. Let's see what happens. By the way; if Romney and Barbour win, the Mayan's were right!

tomtoak